Many teenagers are struggling to place great works in their historical context amid a lack of exposure to a broad chronology of Britain’s literary heritage, it was claimed.

Helen Fulton, professor of medieval literature at York University, said the English curriculum for 14- to 16-year-olds tended to “emphasise skills rather than knowledge”.

Speaking at the Westminster Education Forum in central London, she also warned of a “retreat from difficulty” in the curriculum, saying that many students started English degrees “slightly reluctant to go outside their comfort zone because they’re afraid they won’t be able to write on something they’re not familiar with”.

The comments come weeks after the publication of a new National Curriculum and specifications for GCSEs in core subjects.

Under plans for English, teenagers will be required to study two plays by Shakespeare, the Romantic poets, a 19th century novel, poetry of the First World War and a selection of modern British fiction between the age of 14 and 16.

Prof Fulton, head of York's Department of English and Related Literature, said the current Key Stage 4 syllabus emphasised skills over knowledge, leaving pupils lacking a clear chronology of the past.

“I would have thought it should be the other way round,” she said. “By then, you would expect the skills to be there and you actually want to start broadening the knowledge of the students in terms of the range of texts and the historical development of language in literature as well so there’s some clear sense of chronology.

“Many students come thinking Dickens is just as old as Shakespeare because they’re all in the past and getting that sense of chronology and literary history is something that we have to work at.”

Prof Fulton said all students given places at York had straight As at A-level and most had good "skills and knowledge that we can then build on".

But she suggested that key weaknesses remained, with some students "feeling slightly reluctant to be stretched".

"It’ll take too long to get it all up, much easier to dash something off on a Shakespeare play that they’ve already studied for A-level," she said.

Other experts also criticised the new English curriculum.

Speaking at the same event, Simon Gibbons, chairman of the National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE), schoolchildren could be subjected to an "impoverished" English curriculum which is based on the works of "dead white men".

He said that one of his colleagues had remarked: "It's good we have a new curriculum, it's just a shame that it's for the 19th century, not the 21st."